The Christmas Hirelings (Children's Book). Mary Elizabeth Braddon
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up their varied bindings. Mr. Danby was resting luxuriously after his moorland walk, in quite the most comfortable chair in the room, not too near the fire, for Danby was careful of his complexion. At sixty-three years of age a man, who means to be good-looking to the end, has to be careful of his complexion.
Danby was a slenderly-built man, of middle height. He had never been handsome, but he had neat, inoffensive features, bright grey eyes, light brown hair, with a touch of silver in it, and perfect hands and feet. He reminded elderly people of that accomplished and amiable gentleman, Charles Matthews, the younger.
Miss Hawberk was tall and handsome. She prided herself in the first place upon being every inch a Penlyon, and in the second place upon being undeniably smart. She belonged to a set which, in the London season, sees a good deal of the Royalties, and, like most people who are in touch with personages of the blood royal, she very often talked about them.
So much for the actors in the social drama, which was in this very hour to begin at Penlyon Castle. The curtain is up, and the first words of the play drop quietly from the lips of Sir John.
SIR JOHN. Christmas again, Danby! I think of all the boring seasons Christmas is the most boring.
ADELA (reproachfully). My dear uncle, that sounds like forgetting what Christmas means.
SIR JOHN. What does Christmas mean to any British householder? Firstly, an extra Sunday, wedged into the week, — and at my age the longest week is too short, and all the Sundays are too near together; secondly, an overwhelming shower of stationery in the shape of pamphlets, booklets, circulars, and reports of every imaginable kind of philanthropic scheme for extracting money from the well-to-do classes — schemes so many and so various that a man will harden his heart against the cry of the poor rather than he will take the trouble to consider the multitude of institutions that have been invented to relieve their distresses; thirdly, a servants’ hall, which generally sets all the servants by the ears, and sometimes sets the house on fire; fourthly, a cloud of letters from poor relatives and friends one would willingly forget, only to be answered decently with a cheque. I won’t speak of bills, for the so-called Christmas bills are held back till January, to embitter the beginning of the year, and to remind a man that he was born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward.
Sir John takes up the poker, and illustrates this passage of holy writ by striking a tremendous shower of sparks out of a burning pine log.
DANBY. I don’t think you need mind Christmas. You are rich enough to satisfy everybody, even the philanthropic gentlemen; or you may plunge for two or three of the best established and soundest charities — hospitals, for choice — and give a round sum to each of them. That is what I would do if I were a rich man. And as for festivities, why, you and I are too old, and Miss Hawberk is too sensible to want any fuss of that kind; so we can just put up with the extra Sunday, and pull up the arrears of our correspondence between luncheon and dinner, while the servants are lingering over their Christmas dessert.
MISS HAWBERK (with a faint sigh). That is all very well; but I think Christmas Day ought to be different from other days, somehow.
SIR JOHN (impatiently). Somehow, yes, but which how? What are we, civilized people, with plenty of common sense and no silly sentiment — what are we to do year after year in order to lash ourselves into the humour for Christmas mirth and Christmas benevolence? It was all very well for a miserly old churl like Dickens’s Scrooge to break out suddenly into kindness and joviality, after a long life of avarice. Giving away turkeys and drinking punch were new sensations for him. But for us, who have been giving away turkeys and putting our sovereigns in the plate for nearly fifty Christmas Days! You can’t expect me to be enthusiastic about Christmas, Adela, any more than you would expect me to hang up my stocking when I go to bed on Christmas Eve.
MISS HAWBERK. Oh, that stocking! How old I feel when I think of it! How firmly I believed in Santa Claus, and bow happy I used to be on Christmas morning when I found pretty things in my stocking, or heaped up at the end of my bed! The stocking would not hold a quarter of my presents. I know one year when we were at Bournemouth I had a sweet little sketch of a kitten sent by the Hereditary Princess of Kostroma, who was wintering at the Bath for her chest. She had seen me playing in a corner with my kitten a week or two before, when she was taking tea with mother, don’t you know.
SIR JOHN (looking as if he neither knew nor cared about this feline incident). Stockings, presents, Santa Claus! Ah, there you’ve hit the mark, Adela. Christmas is a splendid institution in a house where there are children. Christmas can hardly be made too much of where there are children in question. No, Adela, I am not such a heathen as you think. I have not forgotten the meaning of Christmas. I can still remember that it is a festival kept in reverential memory of a Holy Child. If you were not your mother’s only daughter and grown up — if somehow or other I had a pack of children belonging to me, I would keep Christmas with the best — keep it as it ought to be kept. But the Penlyons are a vanishing race. I have no children to look to me for gladness.
(A Silence.) Adela Hawberk looks at the fire gravely, thoughtfully, mournfully, and a blush mounts to her fair forehead, and slowly fades away. Perhaps she is thinking of a certain young officer in a cavalry regiment, to whom she is not actually engaged, but who may some day be her husband, if the home authorities are agreeable. And she thinks of a dim, far-off time when she and her husband, and possibly their children, may be Christmassing at Penlyon Castle. The vision seems very remote, almost impossible; yet such things have been. Sir John stares at his books resolutely.
DANBY (who has been dropping asleep in his dusky corner, rouses himself suddenly). Children, yes, of course! Nobody knows how to enjoy Christmas if he has no children to make happy. If one has no children of one’s own, one ought to hire some for the Christmas week — children to cram with mince pies and plum pudding; children to take to the pantomime; children to let off crackers; children to take on the ice. I have any number of godchildren scattered about among the houses of my friends, and I feel half a century younger when I am romping with them. What do you think of my notion, Miss Hawberk? Don’t you think it would be a good dodge to hire some children for Christmas Day? Your cottages swarm with brats. We should have only to pick and choose.
MISS HAWBERK. Cottagers’ children generally have colds in their heads. I don’t think one could stand cottagers’ children for more than an hour or two. I am very fond of children, but I like them to belong to my own class.
DANBY. I understand. You want little ladies and gentlemen, with whom you could romp at your ease. I believe even that could be managed. What do you say, Sir John? Shall we hire some children for the Christmas week, just to amuse Miss Hawberk?
SIR JOHN. You may do anything in the world that is idiotic and fantastical, so long as you don’t intrude your folly upon me. When you do make a fool of yourself you generally contrive to do the thing pleasantly. If Adela would like some children playing about the house next week, why, she can ask them, or you can ask them; and as long as they behave decently I shall not complain.
DANBY. You don’t quite grasp my idea, Sir John. This is nut to be a question of inviting children — children out of our own set, spoilt and pampered after the modern fashion, children who would come as guests and would give themselves airs. No. What I propose is to hire some children — children of respectable birth and good manners, but whose parents are poor enough to accept the fee which your liberality may offer for the hire of their olive branches.
SIR JOHN. My dear Danby, the notion is preposterous, — except in St. Giles’s, where babies are let out to beggars by the day or week, there can be no such people.
DANBY. There is every kind and grade of people; but one must know where to look for them. Do you give me permission to hire two or three — say three — cleanly, respectable children, to assist Miss Hawberk to get through a solitary Christmas in a lonely country house, with two old fogies like you and me?
SIR JOHN. That depends. Where do you propose to find your children? Not in the immediate neighborhood, unless you want to make me the laughing-stock of the parish. Amuse yourselves to your hearts’ content; but I must beg you to leave me uncompromised by your foolishness.
MISS HAWBERK. The Sheik is getting angry,